Will Whitehorn talks a good game:

He foresees uses of the spaceship for science experiments, for example as an alternative to visiting the International Space Station or using unmanned flights for pharmaceuticals companies seeking to use microgravity to change particles.

Later, the aircraft could be used to launch small satellites or take other payloads into space, Whitehorn says. “We could put all of our server farms in space quite easily…”

…Eventually, he sees the possibility of transporting passengers to terrestrial destinations in spacecraft outside the atmosphere instead of by plane. He says a journey from Britain to Australia could be done in about 2-1/2 hours.

“That’s a 20-year horizon,” he said.

I’d take that a lot more seriously if he had liquid engines…

And of course, he never misses an opportunity to bad-mouth the competition:

Virgin is not the only non-governmental party trying to develop space travel in the private sphere, but Whitehorn is confident it will be the first to take passengers into space.

SpaceX, led by veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, is developing space-launch vehicles but they are not designed to carry passengers.

Well, yes, if you ignore the Dragon…

And of course, XCOR might beat them, though if they don’t get to a hundred klicks, the claim will be that they’re not in space, despite the stars, curvature of the earth, and minutes of weightlessness.